Finding duplicates in hidden photo album

Previous comment applies specifically to iPadOS; sorry if it doesn’t work elsewhere.

g.litchfi wrote: Previous comment applies specifically to iPadOS; sorry if it doesn’t work elsewhere.

Should work-- On a Mac, instead of add-to (in a control-click menu) you would use "File>New Album with Selection." And "Unhide" is in the Menu under Image.

I'd leave the Mac on, with Photos open but with another app, like Finder, in front (because Photos doesn't like to do background things when it thinks you're actually trying to use it.) It might take more than a day or two.

Fantastic tip. I didn’t want to unhide the photos then go through them and hide them again.

Photo deduplication won’t look at the hidden folder, but here’s a roundabout way to do what you want, fairly easily.  You need to unhide, de-dup, and rehide.  Here goes:  

Open the ‘hidden’ album. 

Do a ‘select’, then ‘select all’.  

Find the circle-with-3-dots icon and tap it.  

Tap ‘add to album’, then ‘new album’.  

Name the new album something appropriate - let’s use ‘unhidden’ - then tap ‘save’.  

You have now added all your hidden photos to this new album named ‘unhidden’, but if you look at it, it will appear empty - because all its photos are still hidden.  Got it?  

Now go back to the ‘hidden’ album, select, select all, find the circle-with-3-dots icon, tap it, and tap ‘unhide’.  

All your formerly-hidden photos are now unhidden and visible in the photo library, but they are also in your ‘unhidden’ folder.  

Wait a day or two, overnight, locked and plugged into power, and let the photos app do its duplicate detection.  

Find the duplicates folder (in the utilities drop-down) and do what you want - merge, delete, whatever.  

Once that’s done, go to the ‘unhidden’ folder, select, select all, and hide them all.

so if i understand - this above procedure is for iPad even tho OP was about MacOS?

if so, i need to try it on iPad